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I don't think that Gnome Shell will make it for the Gnome 3.0 release. So I think Gnome is still going to default to regular Metacity. Gnome Shell's basic functionality requires composited desktop and such so there really is no way to use that without 3D support and such.

Not quite. 3D support is different from the ability to have a composited desktop but neither is a real barrier with some effort. In connection to the GNOME Shell development, Red Hat has done extensive work on Xorg drivers including radeon driver for ATI and Nouveau driver for Nvidia cards to get it to the stage where a composited desktop can be supported without relying on proprietary drivers.

In Fedora 12, you can install mesa-dri-drivers-experimental package to get the experimental 3D support for a number of ATI chipsets and in Fedora 13, this package will have 3D support for Nvidia via the Nouveau driver.

While there is still work to be done including performance and power management, enormous progress has been made in the last six to eight months and I think by oct, we would be in a state where we can run GNOME Shell out of the box for the large majority of modern desktops. I think, there is a fall back option for users who prefer running the older GNOME panel as well.

Comment

Gnome is very customizable. If you don't like the defaults of a specific distro, you are free to change them or pick another distro with better defaults.

It's customizable, but it's missing some basic stuff compared to KDE, Windows or OS X like sorting icons, setting up a screen saver, compositions without some third party software and to move min/max/close buttons you've got to edit some file. All of those things makes it less usable then KDE in my opinion.

Besides, this kind of logic doesn't make sense: Kubuntu sucks hence KDE sucks. I'm sure there's a name for this kind of fallacy but I have better things to do than search wikipedia right now.

If you want to ask Red Hat's opinions, you will have to find someone in the desktop team to talk to. I am not that person but if you want my personal opinions, I can tell you that.

Thanks, I'm very interested in your opinion.

I would note that Fedora doesn't modify GNOME upstream default settings much if at all since Fedora in general prefers to work with upstream as closely as possible. Red Hat does have a fairly large KDE team and the work being done within the growing KDE community of contributors in Fedora is exciting as well.

Ok, this sounds good.

Red Hat has been a strong contributor to GNOME from the very early days (KDE wasn't a option then because of dependency on Qt which was then proprietary)

This made sense when QT was proprietary.

and has continued to invest heavily including GNOME Shell at the moment.

I know your main focus is Gnome and while QT isn't proprietary since long time I wonder why you're still focusing on it? Drag mentioned webkit integration, but it's already in KDE, KDE is also more consistent, because there are mainly QT/C++ apps rather then C/Python/Mono mix and KDE apps share resources while afaik Gnome apps don't (at least not on the same level), there are also things in KDE which are ready to use at the moment and which equivalents will be present in Gnome in the end of the year. Gnome is also missing basic stuff which is available on other DE, systems:

...like sorting icons, setting up a screen saver, compositions without some third party software and to move min/max/close buttons you've got to edit some file

There are probably many more disadvantages and Gnome development seems to be in stagnancy. If you read some mailing list discussion it seems they don't know where to go in the future.

It is important however to recognize that a lot of the desktop investments such as D-Bus, NetworkManager or PulseAudio or PolicyKit to cite some recent examples are not tied to a single desktop environment and benefits everyone.
So if you are using Linux on the desktop and even if you are using KDE, you still benefit from the work that Red Hat has continued to do. So regardless of your preference, you can be happy about that.

That's right, your contribution is very, very important and appreciated.

Comment

What the hell? What distro are you using because either their Gnome install is messed up or you've somehow broken it...

Ubuntu, since 7.04. With the last one, Ubuntu 9.10, I cannot even disable the 'Keep Aligned' feature (right click on the Desktop). That is, the setting is not remembered across sessions.

Then there are those NFS mounted directories, that when become unresponsive, have the effect of making all my desktop stuff disappear.

Then there is that Trash icon that looks like there is stuff in it, but when I open it, it is empty.

Then there is that CD icon on the desktop, but the CD has long been ejected.

Then there is that "Create folder" that sometimes takes forever, and sometimes does not create anything until you click around in the Nautilus windows.

Then there are times when some directories disappear from Nautilus and I have to refresh to view them again.

Then there is the "Open with > Add", where the list of applications to choose is not sorted and many entries are repeated over and over

Then there are the icons in the top panel of the Desktop that when the screen resolution change temporarily (for instance launching a full screen game), do not keep the position when the old resolution is restored.

Then ... etc. etc

In any case I doubt it is a problem related to the distribution. The
defects are so many and so varied that this cannot be the case.
And I am not taking here of a single computer. I administer tens of computers, with different hardware and all show the same problems.

P.S.: F2 and drag do not work on the *tree* panel, not the view panel.

Comment

There are probably many more disadvantages and Gnome development seems to be in stagnancy. If you read some mailing list discussion it seems they don't know where to go in the future.

Well, it is not that difficult to find what to do: FIX it and bring its usability to the level found in Windows Explorer (as in XP). That would be appreciated by *many* people who don't really care for all that KDE4, Snow Leopard, Vista stuff, and believe me, in my experience, this is the majority of the users.

Comment

I know your main focus is Gnome and while QT isn't proprietary since long time I wonder why you're still focusing on it?

I am not focusing on it because I am not in the desktop team. If you are talking about Red Hat, my understanding is that there was several reasons even after it become non-proprietary including the GPL license on the toolkit (which meant copyright assignment and dual licensing with trolltech) which only changed recently and even now Qt development is fairly closed and Nokia remains the only commercial contributor while GTK development has been in the community space ever since it was created. Also development focus doesn't switch from one thing to another without very significant reasons and none of your reasons you cite such as "sorting of icons" are really important enough for Red Hat customers and when there is such a demand, I am pretty sure Red Hat can implement such features within GNOME rather than switch to another desktop environment. KDE is fully supported within RHEL as well anyway.

So the real question, why be against one company's focus on a desktop environment even if it is not your personal preference when the alternative is supported as well? Can you make a commercial justification for any reason to focus on an alternative? If you can, talk to Red Hat directly. Not me.

Also development focus doesn't switch from one thing to another without very significant reasons and none of your reasons you cite such as "sorting of icons" are really important enough for Red Hat customers and when there is such a demand, I am pretty sure Red Hat can implement such features within GNOME rather than switch to another desktop environment. KDE is fully supported within RHEL as well anyway.

This is what I wanted to hear. RHEL isn't made for desktops like Windows or OS X is, right? I assume this is right, because it's using Gnome which is missing some basic features which are available on some other desktops and which are available there since years. If it would be made for desktops such features would be present in RHEL Gnome or KDE would be a RHEL default DE to catch up with some proprietary systems in terms of customization, features and look. As everyone knows Linux has a little market share on desktops, so to attract people it shouldn't be missing some basic stuff. I believe my assumption is right - RHEL isn't made for desktops, so it doesn't matter if things which are present on other desktops since years are missing in RHEL, because its customers usually aren't desktop users.

So the real question, why be against one company's focus on a desktop environment even if it is not your personal preference when the alternative is supported as well? Can you make a commercial justification for any reason to focus on an alternative? If you can, talk to Red Hat directly. Not me.

If you're (as a Red Hat) not interested in desktops it makes few things clear.

Comment

Red Hat does have some very large customers using it on the desktop but suffice to say that what you consider missing features and what customers want from Red Hat are different. The big picture is that, the choice of desktop environment is irrelevant to many of what is really important to customers. Red Hat continues to invest heavily on those core technologies including being the largest contributor to Xorg as a distribution vendor.

Comment

Kraftman, reading your posts would make one believe that Gnome is some sort of non functional piece of software, or perhaps just a primitive one. But the missing features you have so far mentioned are trivial:

It's customizable, but it's missing some basic stuff compared to KDE, Windows or OS X like sorting icons, setting up a screen saver, compositions without some third party software and to move min/max/close buttons you've got to edit some file.

You can't be serious. Are those the big basic flaws of Gnome? Is this what justify all the hate towards it? Sorting icons. Really? And who on Earth cares about moving the window buttons? I bet that all the two of you who do won't have much problems editing a configuration file. I have my own (strong) opinions about composite desktops, as do the people posting in the Compiz thread; you can see that your preference for this feature being built-in is not universal. It's true that, at least in the past, there was no GUI access to the screensaver settings in Gnome. I take that as an indication of stupidity of a single individual, not of the whole project. In any case, you can't count that as a major loss of functionality, can you?

All of those things makes it less usable then KDE in my opinion.

But there's not "all those things". What you listed are (very) minor issues that not everybody care about. And even in the case of the example you cited with an arguably widespread interest--composite desktops--your view is not shared by everybody.

Comment

Kraftman, reading your posts would make one believe that Gnome is some sort of non functional piece of software, or perhaps just a primitive one.

It sometimes sounds like this, but this is wrong. At least it's not unusable.

But the missing features you have so far mentioned are trivial:

They're trivial and missing while such features are present in other desktops since more then ten years and this is the most annoying :> Details matters in this case. If it wants to be successful it shouldn't be lacking of things which are something common.

You can't be serious. Are those the big basic flaws of Gnome? Is this what justify all the hate towards it? Sorting icons. Really? And who on Earth cares about moving the window buttons?

Dozens of people who are using Ubuntu 10.04 right now. Many users probably wants to sort icons too.

I bet that all the two of you who do won't have much problems editing a configuration file.

Of course not, but newbies have problems with doing this.

I have my own (strong) opinions about composite desktops, as do the people posting in the Compiz thread; you can see that your preference for this feature being built-in is not universal. It's true that, at least in the past, there was no GUI access to the screensaver settings in Gnome. I take that as an indication of stupidity of a single individual, not of the whole project. In any case, you can't count that as a major loss of functionality, can you?

The point is Gnome doesn't evolve equally compared to other DE's, but it's only catching up (some great things were made with Gnome in mind at the first place like Pulse Audio, but then it became available for KDE too and Gnome lost such advantage). KDE has advantages when comes to some noticeable things and Gnome has advantages when comes to far more interesting things, but only for very short time, because then they're taken to KDE. Of course it's not a rule, because some things were taken/copied from KDE to Gnome.

But there's not "all those things". What you listed are (very) minor issues that not everybody care about. And even in the case of the example you cited with an arguably widespread interest--composite desktops--your view is not shared by everybody.

Personally, I don't care too much about compositions, but about evolving equally to other desktops. If Linux DE is missing some things compared to Windows or OS X, a user has less reasons to switch.

@RahulSundaram

Red Hat does have some very large customers using it on the desktop but suffice to say that what you consider missing features and what customers want from Red Hat are different.

I understand this. I assumed you're not interested in a typical desktops and it seems it's correct.

The big picture is that, the choice of desktop environment is irrelevant to many of what is really important to customers. Red Hat continues to invest heavily on those core technologies including being the largest contributor to Xorg as a distribution vendor.

I wondered why did you choose Gnome and you chose it, because QT was proprietary. Then I wondered why didn't you make KDE default DE (which is evolving equally with commercial DEs, so it's probably more attractive for newcomers) when QT became free and like I assumed you probably didn't do this, because (unlike Ubuntu) you're not interested in the typical desktops. You've got different target.

Comment

I wondered why did you choose Gnome and you chose it, because QT was proprietary. Then I wondered why didn't you make KDE default DE (which is evolving equally with commercial DEs, so it's probably more attractive for newcomers) when QT became free and like I assumed you probably didn't do this, because (unlike Ubuntu) you're not interested in the typical desktops. You've got different target.

Once you pick something, you stick with it unless there is a *very* good reason to change. It doesn't matter that KDE became non-commercial at some point, because by that time it was too late: the choice was already made.

Even if KDE is superior to Gnome nowadays (I disagree), the difference is not large enough to justify the change. Doubly so for commercial customers, who treat change as the devil.

Your complaints do sound somewhat trivial:

- yes, you have to use gconf to edit button placement but you can also download one of the dozen tweak apps in existence. Interestingly, none of the users I support has asked me for a way to tweak the buttons (I guess Ubuntu 10.04 will change that).

- no there's no GUI for screensaver preferences. Still, who in their right mind uses screensavers nowadays? That's a Win98 relic. (Or do you really enjoying having your laptop/desktop fans ramp up and power consumption jump by 200% when you are not using your computer? Doesn't really make sense.)